Levi Lusko - You Are Going to Be Happy Again
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If you have a Bible, we’re going to be in Joel chapter 2, picking it up in verse 18. We’re in a series of messages that we have called «It’s Going to Be All Right.» If you have ever in your life felt a sense of regret over past mistakes, or if you’ve felt heartsick over something precious that’s been taken from you, if you know what it is to feel that bitter sense of wanting a redo on a season of life that is already over, or if you know what it is to feel rippled by consequences that you’re facing, and you have no idea how you’re ever going to get through them, this message is for you. The Bible says of itself that it’s full of exceedingly great and precious promises.
In Joel chapter 2, we surely come to one of the most exceedingly great and most precious promises of them all. The title of this message is «You Are Going to Be Happy Again.» Come on, say it in Jesus' name: «You are going to be happy again.» Now, I know full well that half of you didn’t say it because you don’t ever respond to anything I ask you to say out loud, and the other half of you didn’t say it because you have some misguided Christian notion that we’re supposed to, as Jesus people, only care about joy and not care about happiness at all.
I was shocked sitting in the Flourish night, which Jenny spoke at-come on, you gave such a great word! I love those Flourish nights. Ladies, if you don’t come to these or gather at these Flourish nights, you’re missing a great opportunity! She preached a message inspired by a paperweight that Lady Bird Johnson had on her desk. Lady Bird Johnson was terrified of public speaking, and her husband asked her to do the very thing she felt she couldn' t possibly do. Stepping up to the microphone, she thought, «I can be a hostess; I can serve behind the scenes,» but he needed her to campaign for him throughout multiple elections. In stepping up to the microphone, she lived out a value emblazoned on a paperweight that sat on her desk, which said «can do.»
Jenny gave a courageous call for us to choose happiness, and I love that. We didn’t talk at all before the message; I had no idea where she was going, and she had no idea I had spent all week writing this message. It was amazing to know that where her message ended, my message began, and God wanted to continue this theme-that we should be willing to choose happiness.
Now, of course, much of the false dichotomy between the two comes from strained definitions to breaking points. What is normally arrived upon — some of you have heard me teach this — is loosely broad strokes. You can understand the distinction between joy and happiness this way: happiness is connected to things that can be taken away, while joy principally comes from things that can’t. Does that make sense?
Happiness, okay? I’m happy because I’m having a good day — I just got a raise and a good parking spot. But then a bird poops on me and I get a text message telling me XYZ just happened. What happens? My happiness withers because the sense of vitality is connected to things that can be taken away. We have this weird notion in the church at times that it’s bad to want to be happy. Jenny pointed out that the word «blessed» literally can be translated as «oh how happy.» If we don’t believe that God wants us to be happy, we have a problem with a lot of the Bible, which is all about blessing. God seems to want to bless you!
For those of you who were baptized in lemon juice, let me introduce you-or reintroduce you-to a God who was willing for His Son to die so you could be blessed. I refuse to apologize on behalf of a God who is rather focused on you receiving blessing. So like abundant life, forgiven, headed to heaven, filled with the Spirit- that sounds good, right? Sorry if that gets in the way of you having an angry theology or a constipated view of your creator. I read about the Garden of Eden and life there, and I’m like, «I don’t know, a ton of fruit, and my wife’s naked and so am I-that sounds great!» I’m all for it!
Jesus talks about life to the full, right? So none of this «only joy is good and happiness is all bad.» Yes to joy when the things that made you happy are taken away. Can we all agree on that? Yes to joy, which is that deep delight that can happen. I mean, in the book of Habakkuk, one of the great treatises on joy, it says we can be in a place where the fig tree isn’t blossoming, there’s no fruit on the vines, and the labor of the olive has failed-whoa! To an agricultural civilization, this is not a happy day. The fields yield no food; the flocks are cut off from the fold. We get it; it’s bad. So you had a bad day, is the song.
Here’s the choice: ready? «Yet I will rejoice in the Lord; I will joy in the God of my salvation.» So we’re all in favor of opening up a kind of life impervious to the destruction of our peace through tapping into true joy, which is and always is rooted in what can’t be taken away from you. What can’t be taken from you at the end of the day is God. God said, «I will never leave you, and I will never forsake you.»
So there is a life where our peace and our deep delight- joy, joy, joy, joy down in my heart-that’s really ultimately where my worth comes from, where my validation comes from, where my sense of optimism about the future, right? Hope comes from being tied into God, not things. Because if your well-being is connected only to what you’re producing and how you know whether your clothes from ten years ago are fitting on you, all like, «Who shrunk all my clothes from a decade? This doesn’t make any sense! I don’t understand it at all!» You’re like, «Kids, was it you?» It’s like, «Dad, you’re fat!»
If that’s your happiness, if it’s tied to that, of course, you won' t be in a place where you could enter into what Paul lived. That is what writing the book of Philippians, and using the word joy, rejoicing, or rejoiced 16 times from prison-the book that has the most joy in it has the least happiness in it. So go figure that one out. Happiness is essentially tied to prosperity. If you’re taking notes, this is an alliterated outline-it all rhymes: prosperity, security, and recovery.
When you’re prospering, when you feel secure, and when you have a recovery of things that maybe were taken away from you at one point-that’s where we get happiness from. I believe we are opened up to both joy and the promise of happiness as we follow Jesus.
Now, we’ve come for this message to the Book of Joel, which if you haven’t been with us throughout this series, we said that the big themes of this minor prophet are that God is in control of human events and events that take place on this earth-that is to say, He’s sovereign. He’s in control. Nothing happens outside of His purview.
The second element is that there is both terror and hope to be found in the day of the Lord. God coming and His rule and reign on this earth, which will be final, brings both terror and hope depending on your heart’s response to His lordship. It should bring terror if you have not repented. But it doesn’t have to; it can bring hope if you follow Him from a pure heart.
Thirdly, we said one of the biggest elements that we discover in the Book of Joel- do you remember? -is that God responds to repentance. God responds to repentance.
Now, the first two ingredients have been on blast the entire book so far. We’ve seen this idea of judgment and the horrible world events that God says He’s in control of, most notably a horrific locust infestation so dark it blotted out the sun. We have said that this serves brilliantly as a metaphor for grief, where your life that was bright is all of a sudden plunged into darkness.
Even if you still have joy, there’s a difficulty when you’ve been disconnected from happiness. When you’ve been disconnected from things that make you happy, when all of a sudden the lights go out. God’s people responded to His call to repentance-they heard what He was trying to communicate through those things. We said it’s not a good thing to ask, «Why did this happen?» It is a good thing to ask, «God, what do you want me to do in the midst of this?»
In the midst of these dark times, God told them to repent. «Turn to me now,» says the Lord. «Rend your hearts and not just your garments. Don’t just keep going to church like everything’s okay; tear yourself up on the inside and really come to me. Call on me.» And so they did that-between the porch and the altar, they prayed, the priests, the people-all calling off honeymoons, people who called in sick were coming sick, and everybody nationally was turning back to God saying, «Who knows? Maybe God’s kind!»
«Who knows, because he is the Lord. He will relent from evil. Who knows, because of who He is and what He has done? He’s got a really good track record. Maybe God will hear these prayers.»
We ended last week as those prayers, like incense, were rising up to heaven, where Revelation says they all get stored in a golden bowl. Every single prayer that’s ever been prayed will be answered at some point. Now, the crazy thing is some of the prayers we pray while we’re alive may not be answered until we’re in heaven. What a thing to think about-God saying, «Okay, now it’s time to answer that prayer.» But eventually, every one of those bowls will be dumped out, and all answered in God’s day of the Lord that will come.
In response to the people’s prayer, in response to the people’s repentance, what do we find? We find verse 18, which is, according to theologians, the turning point of the entire book, because God responds to repentance.
Now, everything that has been happening, we’re going to see a complete and total transformation in the tone and in the content. I love that this light-hearted section, which is full of hope, is all the more profoundly encouraging because of what we’ve had to fight through to get here. This is, by the way, the text that most people would parachute into.
We’re finally getting to the good stuff-the exceedingly great and precious promises-but because we’ve fought through the difficulties and the dark, and this is so depressing and bleak, I can’t even believe we focused on this, we now get to have the good news all the more emphatically good because of the bad news that preceded it and occasioned it.
Alright, we’re going to read now, starting in verse 18. It says, «Then the Lord will be zealous for His land and pity His people. The Lord will answer and say to His people, 'Behold, I will send you grain and new wine and oil, and you will be satisfied by them. I will no longer make you a reproach among the nations, but I will remove far from you the northern army and drive it away into a barren and desolate land with his face toward the eastern sea and his back toward the western sea. His stench will come up, and his foul odor will rise.' This is the encouraging part-I’m joking-because he has done monstrous things! Fear not, O land! Be glad and rejoice, for the Lord has done marvelous things. Do not be afraid, you beasts of the field, for the open pastures are springing up, and the tree bears its fruit, the fig tree, and the vine yield their strength. Be glad then, you children of Zion, and rejoice in the Lord your God, for he has given you the former rain faithfully-that’s October, November rain- and He will cause the rain to come down for you, the former rain and the latter rain in the first month. The threshing floors shall be full of wheat, and the vats shall overflow with new wine and oil.
So I will restore to you-I love this verse-the years that the swarming locust has eaten, the crawling locust, the consuming locust, and the chewing locust- my great army which I sent among you. You shall eat in plenty and be satisfied, and praise the name of the Lord your God, who has dealt wondrously with you. And my people shall never be put to shame. Then you shall know that I am in the midst of Israel; I am the Lord your God, and there is no other. My people shall never be put to shame.»
I first discovered this verse after a period of backsliding. I made a decision to follow Jesus as a freshman in high school, and I immediately wished I had done it sooner. I immediately wished I had given my life to Christ. I’ve never met anybody, by the way, who in giving their life to Christ was satisfied with when they did it. I have met-and there are probably some amens I’ll get from some seasoned folks in the church at this statement-so many people who, in coming to Christ and in seeing clearly, look back on the days they spent, the years they spent, the decades they spent, the minutes they spent. I bet you could be saved at five and wish you had gotten saved at four. But I’ve talked to so many people who got saved at 60 or really got serious about following Christ at 60, 65, or 70, and expressed such a sentiment of, «I wish I could go back and not have given my best years to the devil. I wish I had known when I was young. I wish I had understood how good God is. I wish I could go back again.»
That’s why, by the way, the Book of Ecclesiastes says, «Seek now your creator in the days of your youth.» This is why we will be a youth-led movement. We will be led and motivated by the desire to call out the next generation because when we see clearly and we come to our senses and we trust God, what do we realize? We go, «Oh my gosh! How was I ever content with what the enemy was offering me, which was just a substitute for life, a substitute for joy, a counterfeit for true pleasure?»
After I gave my life to Christ as a freshman, I looked back at the years of my middle school, really looking to the world to offer me joy, and it just brought disappointment. I looked to drugs, to pornography, looking to these things that would bring me what I was looking for. I surrendered my life to Jesus, and it was like having my eyes opened to the true version of all these things. Throughout high school, imperfectly, but I grew and became stronger in my faith. I began to use my gifts, really began to understand what God had put me on this Earth for, came to understand His call on my life, would get up early, spend time in God’s Word, and hide promises like this in my heart.
It was amazing to watch my life become a tree, like planted by the rivers of living water, absorbing all that, using all that, knowing God had a plan for me, meeting with the creator of the universe, just seeing Him work through my life-it was unbelievable. My senior year of high school though, my parents' marriage ended. My mom moved out, and during that time, I was angry; I was confused. Watching this all take place in front of me was challenging. Both my parents were not raised in environments that normalized being open about difficult things, so they were never given a better frame of reference than what they ended up doing, which was to not really talk about it. We just kind of watched it all happen but never really talked about it.
So for a long time, I kind of shoved it down. But there came a breaking point when I just really got angry; I was frustrated, but I didn’t know how to give voice to these things. I remember deciding, «You know what? Maybe walking with God was a mistake. Maybe God’s been holding out on me.» I sort of checked out for my senior year. The funniest thing was I was my school chaplain- right, the height of irony! Everyone knew me for wanting to be about church, wanting to be about God and wanting to be a preacher one day. So there was this break from what had been reality for me. I began dating a girl I shouldn’t have been dating, and I had a conversation with my grandma, who said to me, «What are you doing? Going to Bible college? You have so many gifts, so many talents. What a waste of all this!» Part of me thought, «Maybe she’s right!»
Even though I was moving toward ministry, for that period of time in the midst of such turmoil at home, I just decided to give myself permission to do what my flesh wanted. During that period, I was increasingly depressed and despondent, and then God just snapped me out of it.
There was a moment when it was just like the fog cleared, and I became aware again of how good God was to me. This verse in particular-the promise of the restoring of locust-eaten years-was the greatest comfort to me because I looked back at the end of that year, and literally like after graduation, after a period of repentance, after a period of really resolving to once again stay in my father’s house, I looked back on that year and just wanted to do it over again.
I longed for a chance to reset that, to regain that year of my life. It gave me such incredible hope to realize that God is so good that if we repent-when we repent-He promises a restoration of the most precious thing that’s possible, and that’s time. Hear me: He doesn’t say just «I’ll restore oil that they took or wine that they took or land that they took.» He says, «I will restore to you the years.» No one can get back time, but God says, «I can!» Wow! He says, «If you hear me now, if you repent now, I will restore to you.» I remember how it felt.
I took a day and decided, «I’m going to fast today,» and just really show God that I wanted to seek Him with my whole heart. I remember coming to this verse, and I remember how I felt when He poured kindness on what I was expecting to be anger. I just expected Him to dump anger on me: «Hey Dummy! What the heck?» Instead, He’s like, «Levi, don’t cry! I’m going to restore to you that year that the locust ate.»
I remember feeling first a surge of hope, and then immediately what began to choke that hope away was the feeling of being unworthy of that. Isn’t it funny how we don’t even need the older brother when God breaks out the fatted calf and the robe and the ring? We elder brother ourselves: «You’re not worthy of that!» That’s the point! Grace is not merited favor; it’s unmerited favor!
So I’ve been out in the pigsty- literally-in the city, thinking that my Father just wants to keep me from fun, and allowing this pain to speak louder in my life than His truth. By the way, letting the trauma be my template now drives me further into dysfunctional behavior. And what? Like God’s got the robe and the ring and the room ready, and I’m like, «But I’m not worthy!» He’s like, «Wait, you’re not worthy?» Oh, forget that! Throws the robe away and gets like sackcloth out!
I had no idea as my Son was being butchered in your place. I had no idea! When I remember saying, «I’m not worthy of you restoring that year; I’m not worthy of the rest of my life,» I would sulk about it and beat myself up over it, right? We want to beat ourselves up over what Jesus already paid for! That’s double jeopardy. God won’t receive double payment; it’s paid for! He doesn’t even see those things anymore, «as far as the east is from the west» — just as if you’d never sinned. That’s justification!
And grace is the unmerited favor where we did our worst, and He’s like, «Here’s me doing my best! Here’s your robe; here’s your ring; here’s that year back; here’s that time back! I’m a God so good, I restore years that locusts have eaten-locusts that never should have come because you never should have wandered, and you never needed to go anywhere else for true joy and meaning and happiness! I’m your source! You turned to fountains that hold no water! But if you hear me now, I’m a God prepared to pour grace out on your life!»
To those of you who are like, «I don’t know though; it just wouldn’t be right because I want things to be fair and I want to hold on.» Listen, Matthew 20, we read it this week in «For the Fight»: Is it not His right to do what He wants with what is His? The servants were angry who had been working all day when the servants who only got hired just before the factory closed got paid as they did. «That’s not fair!» He goes, «Did I not give you what I said I would give?» Grace! So is it not my right to do what I want with what’s mine? I have grace, and if someone gets saved right before quitting time, and I want to give them the same grace I gave to the person who worked all day, you don’t deserve the grace; they don’t deserve it; I’m just a God of grace!
Come on! He’s out here like this with grace! So we should not elder brother other people as though they don’t deserve it. They don’t deserve it, and neither do you! You just got here earlier! You see what I’m saying? Not one of us in heaven deserves it; not one of us in Christ deserves it; you know what we all deserve? Not good things!
I want what’s coming to me; I don’t want what’s coming to you; I don’t want what’s coming to me; I want what’s coming to Jesus, which is God’s righteousness and His grace! And that’s what God’s prepared to give you. That’s the gospel!
Now, just as we begin to make sense of all this, we need to first address three questions: Do you actually want to be made well is number one? As I sat contemplating the trajectory of my life in Christ and where that had taken me for those years walking with Jesus, and as I was now returning to the pigpen during my senior year and feeling all the same disappointment, first of all, no one would sin if it wasn’t fun. So I was feeling the burst of high that I remembered- the familiar familiarity of that old high-but then also the self-loathing and the shame: you’ve got to do more to stay there-all those things. I sensed myself going, «Levi, you can keep going this way, and you know what you’re going to get? More of the same. Or you could make this break, and really repent, and really turn to God, and you’ll watch God continue to do what He has been doing in your life walking with Jesus.»
I had briefly considered calling off Bible college and had briefly considered business school — maybe more of a marketing communications track, using gifts that God gave me for His kingdom for my sake- and I know how that would have gone-well and badly. As I sat there at the crossroads, oak tree or tumbleweed, I had to really ask myself, «I know God will make me well, but do I actually want to be well?»
There’s a reason Jesus asked the man in John 5 at the pool of Bethesda, «Do you want to get up?» Not everyone who’s down actually wants to rise. Most talk about wanting to rise, but talking about it and wanting to are two very different things. It’s not just for those who have consequences coming their way because of sinful decisions; at times, it’s also because of grief over what’s been lost that we want to stay down. Why? I genuinely think it’s because some of us who have had precious things and precious people taken from us feel like healing would be a betrayal to the ones we love.
So we stay in grief when God’s offering us new and abundant life through some misguided sense of loyalty. I think it’s like this: when Lena was taken from our lives and our home, in some part of my life, I think I felt like the last thing my little girl gave me was this pain. So if I let God take it from me, there’s nothing still connecting me to her, and so I sort of felt like I needed to stay down because if I get up and move on, it’s like I’m moving away from her.
So I’m going to stay here, unhealed and unwell, with a festering wound instead of a healed scar because I don’t want the last cord connecting me to this loved one to be cut, because then she’ll drift away. I remember when God said it to me because I remember exactly where I was; I remember exactly what was happening around me when God put this sentence into my heart: «God, if you want to heal my limp so I can dance, I won’t pretend I still have one.»
What if we try this: what if the act of God healing us could become a new action on their behalf? What if connecting us to them isn’t the wound; it’s the healed scar? I began to realize, «Where’s my little girl at? She’s in the presence of the One who- to be with Him is fullness of joy. At His right hand are pleasures evermore.» So what would actually unite me to her more than my sadness could be my healing?
It would be Him giving me-not just joy, joy, joy, joy-but actually, if He saw it in His goodness and bounty to come into locust- destroyed years of grief, to bring in healing and to bring in, dare I say it, happiness too, then perhaps to walk in that happiness that He wanted with His nail-scarred hands, just maybe, I could honor her by choosing happiness and be more like what her day-to-day life is than not.
So we have to first ask the question: regardless of what brought our locust infestation in, do we want to be made well? The second question we need to ask is: What did you not lose? While we’re considering what we did lose, I think it would be worth asking the question — because we’re taking inventory now, right? The locust blocked out the sun; we’re in grief. What did I not lose?
Grief is so overwhelming; it just clouds everything-it’s so dark! I’ve heard of locust infestations coming in that block the sun out for six hours at a time, and during a period of locust-induced darkness, it can create the mindset that things are actually worse than they really are.
So when your grief is enormous, it’s crucial to be specific. My counselor is really good about asking me this question: hold on, Levi, what are you grieving right now? And I would say, «Everything!» And he’d say, «No, no, it’s not everything. Be specific!» So with Lena going to heaven, that’s the grief I’m prepared to talk about now because I’ve had enough time to heal today.
In the midst of the grieving process, I would have to focus in and go, «Hold on, what did I not lose?» I had five incredible years with this little girl. That big pile of grief-all right-well, so this big pile of grief, which those of you who do laundry know, oh my gosh, that pile of laundry — it gets a little bit less intimidating when you break it down and do it right — guys, colors, whites, right? Darks- put them in piles. It shrinks down.
So this big messy overwhelming pile of grief, what did I not lose? I’m not losing any of my memories with her-not one of them, so let’s be clear: the locust didn’t get that; that’s going into this pile. What is still future about my life with her? Oh, hold on a second — now, as I walk in healing, even when I feel sad about her, there’s a happiness in it-that happy-sad, that bittersweet- that connects me to her. You see what I’m saying?
So that’s a key! Let’s go in the keep pile. Then how about I get to spend forever with her in my Father’s house, in which there are many mansions? That didn’t get taken. Okay! So what now did get taken away? Well, I don’t get to walk her down the aisle; that’s sad. She’s not going to be at her sister’s wedding in physical form; that’s sad. But now I’m grieving a much smaller pile with two piles surrounding me that point to God’s goodness, because they didn’t get taken from me. You see what I’m saying?
And we can do this with any number of different griefs. We can differentiate and be specific and be clear about mourning what’s to be mourned while not mourning over what’s not gone. You see what I’m saying?
Alright, so we differentiate. Thus, we ask the question, «What did I not lose?» And that allows us to go: swarming, crawling, consuming, chewing-there are different types of locusts; there are different kinds of griefs.
Lastly, what does it mean to make up for lost time? This is the question that we need to hone in on for just a moment. What does it mean to make up for lost time? Because Joel chapter 2, verse 25, essentially is God promising to make up in our lives for time that’s been lost.
I made a little list of the different ways this can be true: we can see God make up for lost time in our lives financially, relationally, physically, emotionally, spiritually, educationally, vocationally, evangelistically, and eternally. In all of these different ways, God can help us to become stronger after suffering, better after backsliding!
It’s hard to believe when you’re looking at scorched earth. Right? You see, after the locust came through, you’re standing there, going, «My life got reduced to ash!» It doesn’t matter if it was your fault or not. You’re standing in scorched earth, so to believe that this could not only get back to what once was but actually surpass it-that in some way the ash could become fertilizer-that could only happen if God makes a way where there is no way!
But it’s true! I dare you to believe that today because of-not in spite of-but because of your backsliding and because of this grief, you could come to a place where there’s even more glory in your life because of the substantial weighty thing that God releases into it because of the years the locusts ate.
We’re on the back end of it, humbled, thus receiving more grace, because God always gives grace to those who are humble. You let’s put it this way: you have less hat but somehow more cattle; there are fewer clouds, but somehow there’s more rain. Where you’re more ready to serve, you’re healed, strengthened, restored, and you’re ready to enter into what God has for you with a pure heart.
What’s the math and the mechanics of how this could possibly work out? Well, it’s Romans 5:20: «Where sin abounded, grace abounded much more.» Someone say «much more»! In fact, in the Greek, it’s even more special-Romans 5:20 in the Greek essentially says this: wherever sin abounded, grace super abounded!
You see that? Do you look back over the regret of your sin? Do you look back over the regret of loss? You look, okay? Wherever that abounded-that horrible thing is-grace has a funny way of super abounding! The multiple is based on what it gets brought to it. So whatever sin you’re bringing to it, whatever heartache you’re bringing, however big the lost hole is-that’s how much grace is going to superabound!
Based on, thus, exponential Spurgeon said that this is a strange and wonderful way in which God can give back to you wasted blessings, unripened fruits of your years over which you mourned. It is a pity that they should have been locust- eaten by your folly and negligence, but still, though you cannot turn back the swift- winged arrows, yet there is a wonder-working God who can.
You can come to a place where though you should have the most reasons to mourn, you now have the ability to sing the loudest! He went on to say what a thought: Jesus said that whoever’s been forgiven the most loves the most!
Let me give you just four quick ways, and we’re going to pray, about how this actually works. How do we get to a place where what’s been eaten by locusts gets restored sevenfold? It’s one place in the Bible, right?
First of all, it’s because of changes to how you approach life on the back end of a locust invasion. You now have a different way that you approach things. This is Paul, who was trying to tear down the church with all of his heart, who now gives the rest of his life to building up the church. And wouldn’t you agree that Paul, even though he put Christians to death, did far more to build the church than he had ever done to tear down the church?
Joseph can we think about someone who suffered as much as anybody in the Bible? Joseph comes to mind. And yet it was through his suffering that his dreams became reality.
So what does that mean? Well, let me allow Joseph to speak for himself: when God blessed him and brought happiness and joy to his life through all of those hard things, he named one of his sons: «God, you’ve made me even forget my troubles!» I don’t even think about those things anymore! I’m not bitter; I’m healed; I’m strong!
The second way this works is God’s presence. God’s presence is a funny multiplier, right? That’s how David could go, «Wait a minute! Did I spend one day in your courts or a thousand years? I don’t know.» That’s how the Lord does time: a day, a thousand years-one thousand years, a day!
So one afternoon in the presence of God, seeking God, can download into your soul what you could have taken ten years to figure out walking with Him mildly, but now, because of your backsliding, you’re going to give your full all to Him. Come on! He’s a God who makes up for lost time.
And if we truly seek Him now, it always would have been better to not, but some, because of how humbled we’ve become, He somehow comes near in such a way so attracted to brokenness that we get an infinite sense of what we could have taken a very long time to get when we declare over our lives, «The Lord is my portion! The Lord is my portion! The Lord is my portion! He is all that I need!»
And then, thirdly, there’s a supernatural favor that can multiply fruitfulness! Multiply fruitfulness! Didn’t Jesus say that when God’s word goes out, it can produce either 30, 60, or, say it with me if you know it, 100-fold!
I’m not great at math, but I believe that 10 years at 30-fold is the same as three years at 100-fold! What’s that? God’s ability to make up for lost time-to restore to you the years the locusts have eaten!
Lastly, don’t think that God has to do all of His restoring while you’re still living on Earth, because the work continues even after you’re gone. That is to say, the fourth aspect of this promise is eternal life, because as I read Joel 2, it’s clear much of this is immediate, some of it is imminent, and still, there are some aspects of Joel 2 that feel very, very, very ultimate.
Because everything we’re reading, He’s talking about stuff here, stuff here and then stuff way down here. You can’t read about paths dripping with oil and new wine, and barns being full of wheat and the animals getting along with each other and go, «Wait a minute, this isn’t all about today!» Clearly, because taxes are still due! Right?
So clearly, some of what Joel is meant to be part of what God’s doing in Joel 2 is when we’re back in Eden, in paradise with God forever-and indeed, Jesus did say, «Matthew 19: Everyone who has left houses, or brothers, or sisters, or father, mother, or wife, children, or lands for My name’s sake» -that is to say, as you walk with Me, you embrace all the suffering that comes your way. But you shall receive a hundredfold and inherit eternal life!
What am I trying to say? I’m trying to say it’s not just during our 0 to 70, or 0 to 80, or 0 to 5, or 0 to 30-whatever-that God is going to do this restoring. The work continues!
C.S. Lewis actually put it very well when he said that heaven, once obtained, will work backwards and turn even the agony into a glory. I always think when I read that quote about Moses, who, because of his own hard heart and disobedience and anger problem, had some locusts fly into his life and was told, «You will not get to go to the promised land.»
And he had to die looking at it but not touching it with his own feet. Consequences, correct? How does this promise work out in his life? Because he did repent. How does God restore the years the locusts have eaten in his life?
Oh, I don’t know! Jesus transfigured on the mountain. Peter, James, and John — Elijah shows up, and who else? You know Moses was doing a dance when he first showed up in the promised land-he’s like, «How you like me now?»
And he not only got to go-he got to go with Jesus! God restored to him the years the locusts had eaten, and He did it sevenfold! Heaven, once obtained, works backwards, turning the agony in his life into a glory.
I don’t know how it’s all going to work, but I know that somehow, some way, because of what’s been taken from you, because of what you’ve suffered and because of your backsliding, if we follow Him with a pure heart now, He has some way to take whatever agony is there and to release glory through it.
I believe and am convinced that the sufferings of this present life are not even worthy to be compared to the glory that shall be revealed in us, in Jesus' name!
I’ve been reading «Band of Brothers,» the book by Stephen Ambrose that the HBO Tom Hanks series was based off of, and I wasn’t even a chapter in when I came across a quote that gave me pause. The men of Easy Company, this elite squad of paratroopers that would be the tip of the spear at Normandy-they’re at basic training, they' ve been put through hell, being starved and frozen, they had to march 100 miles, all the things they went through, and then, of course, that’s just to get them ready for war, which would be even more horrific.
One of the men interviewed, Private Don Malarkey, looking back from old age to those early days, the difficult days, the hard days, said, «There is not a day that has passed in my life since then that I do not thank Adolf Hitler for allowing me to be associated with the most talented and inspiring group of men that I had ever known,» speaking of the camaraderie, the brotherhood, the deep love he felt for the men at his right and the men at his left that he went through hell with alongside. He’s saying, «I look back, and I’m grateful for Adolf Hitler! Because had it not been for the horrors and the difficulty and the pain and the death and the brutal, I wouldn’t have been opened up to the glory of having these brothers.»
Now, that takes time! Locusts lay eggs in one season; they come to life in another season. There’s an early rain, and there’s a latter rain. That means it’s not just like, «Repent!» and «Look at that restoration!» It’s not just, «Grief happens!» and «I trust God one time!» and «Now look at me!»
Right? What does that mean? Trauma, hear me, is an event; healing is a process. It doesn’t happen in a day, but it can happen if you trust God daily. So today it’s not going to be about, «We’re fully healed! Yay!» But it can be a layer if we let Him.
So Father, we want to let You heal us. We think, God, as we come around the end of this message about how good and how kind You are, who You are, what You’ve done-no one’s done the things You do; no one is like You, Lord!
There are some people today, God, that needed to hear this message because, like me, they’re in a period of backsliding. And there are others today who are in a place of grief, and they’re feeling reticent to open their hands up and let You have their pain because of the things we’ve been talking about.
And for both groups, I believe Your Spirit is saying, «Return to me! Turn to me! Return to me! Turn to me! Return to me!» And if that’s you I’m describing, can I just ask that you would let God know the answer is yes by raising a hand? You’re turning to God; you’re returning to God. You’re turning to God; you’re returning to God.
Thank you, Lord! Thank you! Thank you for one more layer of healing! Thank you for what You’re doing in our lives today! Thank you, Jesus, for restoring the years the locusts have eaten. You can put your hands down.
I want to acknowledge that some of you today are buying a lie because you’re saying, «Well, Levi, if God’s so good, He does so much more than we could have ever done because of our sin; well, then, I should probably sin more.»
So the way that lie is going to look in your heart, the enemy is going to put in this way: «Just keep sinning now; have your fun now, and then eventually, one day, tap out! Eventually, one day when you’re older, someday far off into the future, then jettison-then hit the ejection handle, hit the abort button. Then you can tap out and say uncle, and God will then make all the bad you ever did.»
You’re just going to give more grace to abound because of your sin. And Paul would say to you, «Do you think we should sin more so that grace would abound?» And his answer would be, «Of course not!» Because I want you to hear me: the promise of redemption and restoration is only good today. Not one place in the Bible is it offered tomorrow!
This could be your final moment; this could be your last chance! That’s why the Bible says do not harden your heart. Today is the day! Today, hear me-it’s the day! You might not have another opportunity to receive God’s sweet promise of restoration in your heart and your life, especially if you’re here and you’ve never trusted Christ for salvation, or if you’re like me and you’re a prodigal son; you need to come home.
I want to pray a prayer with you for you to say, «God, forgive me! God, heal me! God, cleanse me!» So He can bring out that robe that you don’t deserve, the ring you don’t deserve, and that fatted calf you’ll never deserve-not tomorrow, right now!
With heads bowed and eyes closed, pray with me, church! Pray with those making this decision today. Everyone at Church Online, every location, God sees you! God hears your prayer! He’s ready to heal your heart! Say this: «Dear God, please come into my life. Please come into my life. Today, I turn to You! I repent for my sins! I want the times of refreshment that come from the presence of the Lord. Thank You for Jesus! Thank You for His cross! Thank You for the resurrection! Thank You for new life! I give You mine! In Jesus' name!»